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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26853655">Consume</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Username101/pseuds/Username101'>Username101</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Last Night I Dreamt That [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Museums, Nightmares, Photography, Scary, Spooky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:00:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,014</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26853655</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Username101/pseuds/Username101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I glanced back behind my shoulder staring at the gaping darkness of the halls behind me and in that darkness I could see silhouettes of vases and statues and for some reason I remember thinking that every single one of them was alive- and yet- none of them were the ones culpable for this unshakable feeling of being watched with the utmost intensity...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Last Night I Dreamt That [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1958953</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Consume</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Last Night I Dreamt That </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everything was in black and white and I was in some sort of museum with impossibly tall windows that faded past my field of view and it was dark and there was the soft sound of rain in the background. I remember stopping for a couple of seconds to watch as rain leaped onto these ridiculously tall windows before slithering down and I just stared at them and thought of snakes and the way they’d twist and slide over one another and of them moving in the same way each raindrop moved. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I also remember thinking that I had to hurry because even though I was alone, I was being watched- being monitored. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I glanced back behind my shoulder staring at the gaping darkness of the halls behind me and in that darkness I could see silhouettes of vases and statues and for some reason I remember thinking that every single one of them was alive- and yet- none of them were the ones culpable for this unshakable feeling of being watched with the utmost intensity.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I tore my stare away and continued on carrying old camera equipment. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I think my job was to photograph the whole place and as I did, I put together each picture so the pictures in of themselves did not make sense, half a statue here, a random room corner there, but when put together you could feel like you were walking through the museum itself. As I took more pictures there came a point where I felt like I captured something I shouldn't have but that for some reason there was absolutely no possible way I could throw away that image and retake it, so with a hammering heart and shaking hands I placed it with the rest of the pictures and as I stared it suddenly began to move.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's shadows were no longer shadows but pencil markings instead and pretty soon after, they began to feel like they had a life of their own and they started moving with more and more free range, escaping the restraints and outlines my camera had made for them. I kept taking pictures and placing them down and as I did, each one became infected with these thinking moving lines. Soon, all the pictures I took after the one I Should Not Have Taken, worked in tangent to create a great big spiral that went from lighter tones to this impossibly real abyss at the very center of it. I laid all my pictures down in the ground and I walked on top of every one, staring down, and feeling myself spiral with the lines themselves, and in that spiral I could feel like there was something watching me again now more intense than ever and it terrified me so </span>
  <em>
    <span>much</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Every single cell in my body begged my eyes to be torn away but all I could do was watch and follow the spiral, and as I did the rain faded until there was a point I even started to doubt I ever even heard it in the first place. The silence was suffocating. I could hear my blood rushing in my ears and somewhere along that sound, a growl or angry whisper emerged. I couldn't hear what it said- but I could feel its urgency and determination. I could feel it demanded something of me and I couldn't really do anything except walk faster and stare more intensely at the spiral. The longer I walked the more unsettling my panic became, so I walked faster and faster. Matching my hasted pace, the voice became louder and louder, to the point it was a booming, savage, scream. And still- </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I could not tell what it was saying, not until I got to the very center of this spiral, and stood on the very center of the abyss and for a second everything was quiet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I stood there, staring down, hyperventilating, and I expected something to happen- something terribly bad- but it didn't. The more time that went on without the voice the more I started to relax-still unable to force my eyes away from this darkness- and once I did, and I could no longer hear my breathing or my beating heart, once I was finally truly engulfed by silence, the voice called out once again. Only that this time it felt like it came from someone standing right behind me- their breath on my neck- and I finally made sense of what it was saying.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <b>
    <em>Consume</em>
  </b>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next thing I knew, I was watching people swarm the museum, but I was looking through the walls....  no.... wait.... </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I was looking through my pictures. As I watched, I realized these people were also made of tiny moving pencil scratches. I started following a family that'd just entered, and there was a small boy among them, five years or so, his eyes impossibly big with curiosity and excitement. He ran in ahead, his mother shouting out his name, begging him to slow down and keep pace with the family but the little boy went on ricocheting from art piece to art piece in a way that made me think of ping pong machines. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At one point, he found himself in a room that didn’t have any other visitors. He stole a quick glance of a Roman statue and then another off an ancient painting, and stopped dead in his tracks. The little boy stared directly at me. I knelt down so that our eye levels matched and I lifted my finger, and beckoned. He came towards me, uncharacteristically slow as if sensing something was wrong. When he was right in front of me I pressed my palm against the barrier that separated my world from his and this little boy grinned at me, proudly displaying his first missing tooth, and he pushed his palm up against mine. I spoke and this time that whisper growl emerged from my mouth</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <b>
    <em>Consume</em>
  </b>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everything faded to that same darkness as the mouth of the spiral in my pictures. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Been listening to the Magnus Archive podcast and been getting weird nightmares- this is one of them. In addition to the Magnus Archives I've also been listening to a bunch of Critical Role so every time I heard "Consume" in my nightmare, I'd hear it in Matthew Mercer's/Uk'otoa's voice, it was super weird lmao. This nightmare lowkey haunts me a little, sometimes I'm just drawing or I'll think of a museum or something related and the word "consume" just rings out in the back of my head. If you don't hear from me please contact the Magnus Institute haha.  Anyway please let me know what you think and if you'd be interested in hearing about my other weird dreams :)))</p></blockquote></div></div>
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